


Minesweeper

by tryslora



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Community: reversathon, Crack, HP: EWE, Hogwarts, Infidelity, M/M, Post-Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-01
Updated: 2012-09-01
Packaged: 2017-11-13 07:17:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/500900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryslora/pseuds/tryslora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Don’t miss the summer blockbuster Minesweeper, based on the thrilling computer game of the same name!  </i>
</p><p> </p><p>Three years after the war the curses that were cast during the final battle are bubbling up in the walls of Hogwarts, creating a situation where “mines” are scattered throughout the castle. Harry (as an Auror) and Draco (as a curse breaker) are among those sent in to remove the mines to make Hogwarts safe. But memories of magic are not stable, nor predictable, and the situation very quickly goes awry in unexpected (and explosive!) ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Reel

**Author's Note:**

> OMG THIS PROMPT. I burst out laughing delightedly when I read it. It was entirely unique and really made me sit down and think through how I could do it. I wanted to create something cinematic for you, and I had an absolute blast working on this. The story framework is set into old time movie reels to create a traditional 100 minute “film”. The sixth reel, consisting entirely of credits, can be assumed. Sadly, I have no bloopers. :( Many thanks to my betas for their hard work and patience with me. As always, JK Rowling owns the world and characters; I’m just having a blast playing with them.

“How far does that edge reach— _bloody hell!_ Be careful!” Harry just barely brought his wand up in time, a quick spell protecting him and his protégé from the thick pulse of magic. Laura Madley’s hands shook, cradling an empty space as her breath shuddered.

“Oh. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just… I was trying to figure out exactly how far it went along this wall and then it just…” She looked up at him, soft brown eyes puppy-wide and sorrowed. “It went boom.”

Boom, that was a good word for it. Harry sighed, pushing at his fringe with his fingers, tugging it out to see if it was longer, and praying that this time it wasn’t blue. “Nothing bad happened, Laura. It could’ve been one of the big ones, but this one seems to have been benign.” He hoped it was, anyhow. Might be that when they got home they’d find strange colours on skin that was still under clothing, or one bloke had found webbing on his toes just two days before. The gills three days ago hadn’t been half-bad; Harry’d gone swimming quite a bit before those wore off.

Laura waited patiently for him to tell her what to do next. To her credit, her hands hadn’t moved a bit from where she’d stopped. “It’s not all gone,” she said softly. “I can feel more of the magic here, next to my little finger.” Her pinkie twitched slightly. “And that bit is one of the bad ones. When I set off that pocket, it exposed this one.”

“What you’re saying is, setting it off helped, or we’d have contained them both together and it might have gone off,” Harry translated, making a mental note of it for his report.

She smiled weakly. “If you could phrase it that way, it’d be better for my record.”

protégé wasn’t the best word for Laura Madley. protégé would imply that she was good. Special. Someone that he wanted to nurture into a position where she could take his place. No, Laura was his trainee, and Harry couldn’t help but wonder if his standards were skewed because he’d entered the DMLE straight out of a war. She just seemed so helpless. Those few years made such a difference in attitude and experience.

He tried for patience. “Since you’ve got your hands in it, how far out does the edge of the new bit go?” He gestured beyond her pinky finger.

She closed her eyes. “About one meter to my right, then a solid meter up and down as well. About a third of that is above my hand, and two thirds is below. I can’t tell what the spell was meant to do originally, but it was definitely a curse of some sort, and it feels like it’s just gotten darker with time.”

In the three years since the war had ended, pockets of extraneous magic had been growing in Hogwarts. At first, they had no impact on daily life, but in the spring two students had stumbled into a pocket and it had exploded around them, enveloping them in a bubble from which they had to be extricated. The school had been immediately shut down for the sake of the students, and the Ministry was tasked with spending the summer removing every last trace of leftover magic from the war.

The trick was that some of it was benign, simple hexes that had shifted into strange oddities after the war. But the potent curses cast during the final battle had lingered in the walls, feeding on Hogwarts’ own magic until some bubbled up, bursting into explosions that were potentially fatal.

Removing this minefield of magic wasn’t a simple task, yet Harry was expected to train his young Auror apprentice and ensure that she survive at the same time. There were days when he wondered if it were possible to accomplish both tasks at once, as well as clearing the castle in time for fall classes to begin.

“All right, I’m going to cast the containment spell.” It wasn’t up to the Aurors to break the curses they found, merely to contain them and mark the spot for the curse breakers to take care of later. It was delicate, careful work, and Harry took it slowly, feeling his way around the edges as he expanded a small bubble of protective magic and placed it over the curse.

Laura’s breath was a thin whistle in his ears as he worked, barely exhaled before she gasped in again, trying to stay perfectly still. He jostled her arm and she went rigid, helpless if something exploded, relaxing only when it didn’t.

“Almost there,” Harry murmured. He expanded the spell slowly, settling it down over the top edges of the curse. He tugged it into place. All that was left was to connect it at the bottom, and he hoped the curse didn’t go into the floor, else there might be— _KABOOM!_

The floor shuddered beneath them, rippling in a wave of curled stone before falling back into a place with a thump, leaving Harry and Laura on their bottoms.

“Did that—?”

Laura looked at her hands, then patted down her body. “Two hands, ten fingers, everything else seems fine,” she said quickly. “I don’t think that was ours exploding.”

Then what the bloody hell was it? It had shaken the entire castle. Harry stood, wand out, and did a quick check to make sure his own containment field was in place. Satisfied that he wasn’t going to cause an explosion of his own, he held out one hand to Laura and helped her up. “Come on.” 

Shouting drifted up the stairs, gaining volume as they raced towards it. As soon as they set foot on the top step, the stairs flattened, creating a ramp, and Harry and Laura slid rapidly downwards, towards the noise, yelling, and a whole lot of dust.

#

“I’m _fine_.” Draco slapped the helpful hands of his assistant away from the tattered remains of his robes. His lip lifted in a snarl. “I do believe you’ve been quite enough help as it is. After all, if it weren’t for that last twist of your fingers—“

“I’m sorry,” Creevey blurted, hands held up. “I did everything you said. It’s not my fault that the spell zigged when it should’ve zagged.”

“Spells do not _zig_ nor _zag_ on their own,” Draco snarled. “You arsed this up, Creevey. I had that curse in hand, and it is entirely your fault that this corner of the castle is in ruins.”

Creevey turned on his heel, scrubbing dark hair back from his forehead. “Oh, I don’t know. I think it looks a bit better. Not nearly so dingy as it was.”

“Creevey!” Draco snapped. His wand leveled at the younger man, tip just brushing his nose. He might have hexed him, despite the fact that it would have meant a reprimand and quite possibly being written up (again), but he was interrupted by two people tumbling out of the stairwell to land at his feet, knocking into him. He shifted, wand pointing down, tip touching a forehead, slipping between tousled dark fringe and resting against an all too familiar scar. Draco rolled his eyes. “Potter. Of course. Come to make my day better, have you?”

Potter’s partner—Draco had no idea what her name was, nor did he care—scrambled to her feet with the help of Creevey, who seemed to take far too much pleasure in brushing the dust and dirt from her robes. “We heard the explosion,” she offered. “We came down to see if you needed help.” She cast a glance at the stairs. “Apparently the stairs thought you needed help _quickly_.”

“I see,” Draco said dryly. “And Potter, do you believe I need help?”

Potter gently nudged Draco’s wand away from his face before pushing to his feet. “I believe you’ve blown apart this corner of the castle, and that you’re lucky not to be injured,” Potter said easily. “I should still send you off to the Healer, though. Since I’m in charge of operations today, and you might have something we’re not seeing.”

“Should we go to the Healer as well?” Potter’s partner piped up. “After all, we—”

“You’re _fine_ , Laura,” Potter interrupted. “We didn’t have anything on this scale. You’re just bloody well lucky no one else is working on this level.” He jabbed a finger at Draco’s chest. “You brought half the dungeon down. What if someone had been inside—?”

“No one else is willing to go near the dungeon,” Draco said dryly. “You know that as well as I.”

A long low sound caught their ears, and they turned as one towards the entrance to Slytherin, wands out.

“It’s the Baron,” Draco said.

“It doesn’t sound like the Baron,” Laura offered.

“I’ll go in and take a look.”

Draco caught Dennis’s arm before he managed to take two steps into the wreckage. “No, you won’t. I can’t work the curses and watch you at the same time. Go up and report the explosion. I’m going to determine the extent of the damage.”

“And I’ll be checking to make sure no one’s down there and trapped,” Potter said quickly. “Laura, go with Dennis upstairs. Report in both this explosion and what happened for us. This is escalating, and it looks like every time one of these magical mines blows, something worse comes after. I don’t want the next one to level Hogwarts.”

“I don’t need your help, Potter.”

Potter smiled, polite and bland and the expression made Draco’s blood boil. “I’m not helping you, Malfoy,” he said. “I’m doing my job. I’m in charge of operations, and this seems to be one hell of an operation.”

The low call was clearer this time, words still indistinguishable but pain evident in the tone. Potter waved his wand. “Go on, Malfoy. I’m with you.” He glanced back at the younger witch and wizard. “Go!” he ordered. “Upstairs. Report in. Then take a look at the curse we contained earlier. I don’t want Dennis touching it without his mentor, but he can make notes so you can be better prepared tomorrow.”

The two hurried off down the hallway, searching for stairs that were still stairs while Draco stared at Potter.

“Are you insinuating I wasn’t prepared?” he asked snidely.

“I’m saying Dennis Creevey is still a green curse breaker, and as good as you are, I think he shouldn’t be here. You need someone better working with you,” Potter said mildly.

“Someone like you?”

“I’m not a curse breaker.” Potter shrugged. “But I’d bet I’m less likely to set something off than he is.”

Draco glared. This was an irritating job, full of dark memories and the guilt of knowing that some of these curses that had set into the walls were his own. He despised being here for this, and it was only made worse by having Potter by his side. “Fine,” he said sharply. “Come.” Robes snapped around his heels as he turned and strode into the wrecked halls of Slytherin, in search of a voice he doubted was even real.

Pain infused these walls, after all. Draco suspected that was all they heard, as the very castle itself cried out against the damage done to it in the name of war.

#

Harry moved carefully down the hall. One step, then another, fingers trailing lightly in the air just above the walls. The curses had embedded there but that didn’t mean that was the only place they could be touched. They created bubbles. Pockets of magic, one resting up against another. His fingers swayed and stopped, mid-air, and he paused to take a closer look. Benign. Something simple. Easy. But the question was what lay beyond it, what else it could set off in a chain reaction.

“Potter!”

At the yell, Harry’s hand jerked and he felt magic grab around him. Tingling sharply, it bit into his finger and he cried out at the sensation of pins jabbing into the soft flesh of his hand. He felt the bubble pop, then the sensation of another blooming and growing beyond, then another, then another yell of, “Bloody _hell_ , Potter! You’re more bloody dangerous than Creevey!”

“I wouldn’t have had a problem with it if you hadn’t startled me,” Harry muttered. Louder, he added, “And what the bloody hell do you think you’re doing, rushing in like you’re a bloody Gryffindor? I thought you were supposed to be the cautious one, watching out for your own skin. Do you want to run headlong into a curse, Malfoy?”

“I can tell where they are without having to touch every bloody one of them.” Malfoy came back into view, his pale hair stained an unbecoming shade of pink, offset by pale luminescent spots on his skin. “Do try to keep your hands to yourself, Potter.”

Harry tried. He pressed his lips together, teeth clenched, but the laugh bubbled up anyway, anger diffused at the humour of Malfoy’s appearance. The answering scowl only made Harry laugh harder.

“What?” Malfoy snapped.

“Pink,” Harry finally managed to say. When it became clear that Malfoy had no idea what he meant, Harry waved his hand and tried to ignore it. “Doesn’t matter. We’re both all right after that one. Let’s keep going and find out where this chain reaction ended.”

“Because it’s quite likely that whatever’s at the end of it is even worse.”

“Exactly.” The one thing Harry knew was that no matter how little he _liked_ Malfoy, and no matter how terribly they got on, they at least respected each other’s knowledge and skill. The years since the war had been spent in training, and while Harry might be the wunderkind of the Auror world, Malfoy held a similar rank among the curse breakers. Years spent among the Death Eaters meant there were few curses he had never seen, and of the ones he knew, few that he couldn’t break. It meant they were perfect for this job.

And likely perfect to be working together at this moment.

That knowledge didn’t improve the situation any, however, as Malfoy scowled and turned away before stalking down the corridor. Malfoy was still Malfoy, and wouldn’t listen to a word Harry said.

Harry threw his senses wide open, casting a detection spell that he could carry with him. It wasn’t delicate, but it should warn them if Malfoy were about to barrel into something. But at the same time, it looked as if Malfoy moved with a purpose, head cocked as they drew closer to the voice Harry could still hear echoing every so often, shivering into his ears. It was eerie. Pained. As if someone lay buried under the rubble.

Malfoy stopped as they reached the edge of the damage, just outside the sixth year dormitory. “That’s what I thought,” he said softly. “Of course it came here.”

“What’s here?” Harry drew up close behind him. He felt Malfoy stiffen, then saw him relax as Harry took a step to the side. “Other than the other end, and something potent.”

Malfoy’s smile was thin-lipped and humourless. “You don’t want to know. Suffice to say, even Slytherin was not a pleasant place to while away the days of that last year of the war. And this place bore witness to things I shouldn’t like to remember.”

The wail was louder, and Harry’s breath caught at the sound. There was no one trapped here. No one _alive_ that is. “It’s a ghost.”

“A new one, I suspect, or something needing to be released.” Malfoy closed his eyes, wand in hand, and Harry felt the energy around them rise as Malfoy sought out the edges of the spell. “Repeated curses,” he murmured. “Repeated pain. Lining the dungeon with the essence of that horror. Even you can likely feel this, Potter. They’re quite fortunate that it hasn’t exploded out on its own before now.”

Harry didn’t like to think of this lingering in a dormitory with students in residence. No matter that they were Slytherin; they were still _children_. “Do you think you can take this apart, or should we contain it and come back to it when there’s someone—”

“Are you saying you don’t have faith in my ability?” Malfoy raised one eyebrow in inquiry. “I assure you, I’m more than competent enough to handle this curse. But you might wish to settle in, as it could take some time.”

Harry winced. “We ought to contain it and return later then,” he said. “It’s getting late.”

“I’ve nowhere else to be tonight.” Malfoy’s hands moved carefully, and Harry watched as he mapped the edges, leaving them glowing in the air. It was a slow process, and it grated on Harry’s nerves that he’d have to sit here, minding Malfoy like a wee child through hours of this.

“Well, I do.”

“A _shag_ , Potter?” Malfoy drawled, light sliding into the air from his fingertips. “Are you trying to tell me that your prick is more important than the safety of those who attend Hogwarts?”

Harry flushed. “It’s dinner with Hermione and Ron,” he said. Maybe a shag, too, but that depended on how the evening went. Harry wasn’t entirely certain where he stood with his best mates. Sometimes it seemed that he was a part of a trio, and sometimes it seemed as if it were the two of them and he was waiting on the outside and let into the warmth occasionally. He’d dated others a few times since the war, both men and women, quite quietly to stay away from the papers. But when those relationships were over, he’d go back to Ron and Hermione again, and they’d take him in, at least for a little while.

Lately, though, he’d felt as if he were intruding on their time together, and he had the feeling it was time for him to move on again. Ron had told him he was hunting wedding rings, and Harry suspected that meant his relationship with them was done for anything more than friendship. Which meant tonight might be their last night, which he was going to miss because he was standing here watching a prat work spells far too slowly to get anything done in a reasonable amount of time.

“If it’s that important to you, then help,” Malfoy ordered. “If I can trust you to have steady enough hands to map this, then do so, rather than staring at me. I can feel your eyes boring into my shoulders and I assure you, I’ve done nothing worth worrying about.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about,” Harry muttered. But he stepped up closer, moving to the other side. As his fingers brushed the edges of the spell he felt sorrow burrow deep into his bones and he shuddered at the sense of it.

“That’s it, Potter,” Malfoy said quietly. “Don’t let the pain upset your equilibrium. We can’t afford to have your hands deviate even the smallest amount from the path of this spell. Let it seep into you, but do not let it control you.”

Harry took a deep breath and settled in to the work. He didn’t like it. He could hear the screams in his mind from repeated Crucios cast on this spot. He felt the tickle of something deeper. Darker. He wondered if a killing curse was done here. He wondered if it were only once, or more than that.

“So what are you worried about?” Malfoy asked, tone as light as if they discussed the weather. “Afraid your Mudblood and Weasel will shag without you?”

“Don’t call them that.” Harry grit his teeth. “They’re worth ten of you, Malfoy.”

“I’m hurt.” Malfoy sighed. “And here I thought you loved me. You spent all that time pining after me sixth year.”

“I also almost killed you,” Harry snapped.

“As if I could forget,” Malfoy responded. “I still carry those scars, among others. But I assure you, you are not even close to being the person who damaged me the most during this war. And you did choose to save my life in the end.”

“I can’t think why.”

Malfoy smirked. “You couldn’t imagine life without me. No matter what I’ve done, where I’ve been, or what I’ve seen, your life would be dismal without me in it.” He shrugged, somehow keeping his hands moving perfectly on target despite the motion. “Much like I saved you.”

“Because your life would be dismal?” Harry rolled his eyes. “I doubt that.”

Malfoy paused, fingers spread, one hand high and the other low, cradling the edges of the curse between them. “After all the things I had seen, Potter, I knew we needed you.” His voice was low. “If anyone was to stop the torment, I was told it had to be you. Thus, you were saved.”

Harry’s hands stilled, breath coming too quickly. He could see it, could imagine Malfoy standing nearby, watching other students tortured here in this place. “You watched this happen?” He couldn’t keep the fury from his voice, and he saw the answering tilt of Malfoy’s head, stubborn and proud despite his role in the war. “You watched this happen and you didn’t _stop_ it?”

“How could I?” Malfoy spat. “What was I to do, Potter? The Dark Lord held my parents against my good behaviour. Were I to step even the smallest amount out of line, he would have had them killed. Should I have sacrificed them to save a student? Should I have sacrificed myself? Where does the line fall between right and wrong? Would the course of the war of changed, or would I merely be dead, another ghost to haunt these halls?”

Potter’s breath caught in his chest. He wanted to reach out, to yell, to strangle. His hands jerked.

_No_.

He felt the bubble thin, split, the tiny hole expand until it burst, showering over them.

Pain. _Crucio_. Again and again, the sounds of screaming in his hears, high and thin and repeated until his throat was raw and ears were bleeding. He fell to his knees, hands pressed over his ears, trying to shut it out. Body curled, falling onto the stone floor, then pain again, sending him into a rictus, back bowed as he cried out.

He heard them.

He heard all of them.

He heard the castle scream and felt it shake, felt the floor cave in.

Harry had no hands to grab the floor with, no way to move as trapped as he was within the curse repeating itself. He was helpless as the floor fell to land among the rubble below.

He fell with it, longer than he thought possible, as if time elongated.

He felt himself impact the floor, sharp and hard with a new, fresh burst of pain.

Then everything went black.


	2. Second Reel

The world was still dark when Draco opened his eyes.

He reached for his wand but found it missing. Gritting his teeth, he fought past the headache behind his eyes, seeking his reserves of magic. Focus felt nearly impossible, but he finally managed a quiet, “ _Lumos_ ,” and cradled a small light in his palm.

That nothing hurt other than his head was a miracle. He sat up slowly, lifting his hand to let light slip into the shadows around him. “Potter?” he called softly, hearing his own voice echo back from the rubble.

Too much rubble for comfort, piled all around him and beneath him. He thought there should be a hole high above them, something they could float up to, but he saw nothing but darkness. Nor did he see his wand. “Potter?” he called again.

A low groan responded.

Cradling the light carefully in his hand, Draco crawled across the wreckage to where Potter lay sprawled, one arm bent at an odd angle. Just beyond him, Draco spotted a slim length of wood and grinned sharply. He knelt, reaching past Potter’s legs, falling half atop him before his fingers just brushed his wand, enough to pull it towards himself.

“You’re lying on me.”

“Astute observation, Potter, but I assure you, it isn’t for pleasure.” Draco rolled off, his wand in his hand. Another casting and the _Lumos_ brightened, a garish light in the small space.

He still couldn’t see a hole above them.

No, they appeared to have fallen into a cave, sealed on all sides, leaving them with debris and each other in a place that might be twenty feet long on each side.

Potter waved his good hand, calling out, “ _Accio Wand!_ ” Nothing happened. “Bugger,” Potter muttered. “At least you’ve got yours.”

“Quite good for you, as it appears you need some healing.” Draco crouched next to him.

Potter sat up quickly, wavering until Draco reached out and grabbed him. “I don’t need you to heal me,” Potter grumbled.

“Because your arm naturally has a bend there?” Draco’s touch was as careful as he could manage, yet Potter still swallowed a cry as he straightened his arm. “Hold still, Potter, and stop trying to be a martyr. There are only two of us, and we’re trapped. We need to both be in our best shape possible.”

“Where did you learn to heal?”

Draco’s lips pursed in a thin half-smile, his wand never wavering as he carefully helped the bones knit into the proper places. “It was a war, Potter. There were injuries, and no matter what you might think, they were my friends and my family. Something you obviously find so terribly offensive that you caused us to be caught in a curse.”

Potter couldn’t hide his wince, nor did he meet Draco’s gaze. “Look,” Potter told the floor. “I didn’t mean to set that off.”

“Curse breaking is delicate work, and you let your emotions get the best of you.” Draco pushed himself back, rolling to his feet and offering a hand that Potter ignored. “Now that you’ve set the curse off, we need to determine how to best unwind ourselves from it.”

“Unwind ourselves?” Potter looked around. “What’s to unwind? We need to unbury ourselves and get out of the dungeon.”

“Look carefully.” Draco grabbed Potter’s shoulders, turning him to stare at the wall. “That’s not Hogwarts. I don’t believe we’re in Slytherin. I’m not even certain we’re in Scotland. For all I know, we might be trapped in a memory.”

Potter was very still beneath his touch. “I can feel your fingers on my shoulders,” he said slowly. “We’re not in a memory.”

“We’re not in a Pensieve memory,” Draco informed him. “Quite correct. But we could still be in the echo of a curse memory. The last I remember is pain from a Cruciatus Curse and a fleeting sense of terror and a desperate need for escape.” He looked up, then at the walls again. “The question is: what form did that escape take?”

“You’re saying that if the victim did that thing where you go out of your own mind to get away from the pain, then we could be wherever her mind went?” Potter rubbed at his arm, flexing his hand and shaking the arm again as if testing that it worked. “We could be inside a psychotic mind.”

“Or we could be having a shared hallucination while buried and slowly suffocating to death.” Draco’s smile was sharp. “Do look at all the options. This is why we have curse breakers, Potter, and why the Aurors are supposed to mark the spells and leave the heavy lifting to us.”

“If you hadn’t distracted me—”

“If you hadn’t felt the need to discuss a time of my life I have already paid for,” Draco interrupted him, “then we might still be there and finishing our job. Instead we are here. Now, may I suggest that since this _is_ a curse, and thus my specialty, you might wish to remain quiet and stay put. _Do_ try not to make anything worse.”

What Draco didn’t say, as Potter found a somewhat out of the way spot to settle in, was that he had no idea where to begin. Draco had never seen something quite like this, and had certainly never been within a curse like this. But if there was a solution, he was confident he could find it. Eventually.

#

Harry couldn’t sit still for long. Watching Malfoy work was as entertaining as watching paint dry. No, not quite that bad. The spellwork was dull because Harry didn’t know it, but Malfoy himself was somewhat entertaining. He talked to himself, which Harry hadn’t expected, muttering a quiet monologue under his breath as his hands and wand moved across the stone.

And his hands… if Harry ignored the fact that it was _Malfoy_ , those long, pale fingers were actually quite attractive. Deft with each touch, skilled from what Harry could see. And as the air around them had grown warmer, Malfoy had dropped his robes to the side, leaving himself in rolled up shirtsleeves and trousers, a faint sheen of sweat on his skin.

“Potter, do try to contain yourself,” Malfoy snapped, pausing in his work and turning to fix a dark glare at Harry’s pacing. “If you need the facilities, create yourself some privacy and deal with it.”

“Need the—Malfoy, I’m not pacing because I need to piss.” Harry rolled his eyes and sighed. “I have somewhere else to be.”

“Granger. Weasel. I do remember, and I am doing my best to break this curse. Perhaps you should have thought of that before bringing us into this predicament,” Malfoy informed him curtly. “I am not at fault for your lack of social entertainment this evening. And I do realize it has absolutely no bearing on your own mood, but I am missing my own engagement at the moment.”

“You have something to do? Let me guess, Pansy Parkinson’s coming by?” In all actuality, Harry had no idea what Malfoy’s social circle was like these days. When he thought of Pansy, he remembered seeing them in the train, with Malfoy’s head in her lap and her fingers idly drifting through pale strands of hair. And it was all back to fingers again, only this time touching Malfoy, which shouldn’t be as much of a distraction as it was at that moment.

Clearly it had been far too long since Harry’d had a good shag.

“Dinner with Astoria Greengrass.”

Harry yanked his attention back to the conversation. “A date? I don’t know her.”

“Daphne’s sister.” When Harry stared blankly at Malfoy, the other man sighed and explained. “Daphne Greengrass. She was my housemate. You shared a Potions class with her for several years. I’m quite certain you must have noticed her at some point, Potter. You can’t possibly be that oblivious.” 

Harry frowned. “I’m not, at least not where important things are concerned.” And during Hogwarts, those important things to notice had been anything to do with his mates, the war, and what Draco Malfoy was up to on any given day. He hadn’t needed to bother paying attention to anyone else.

Malfoy’s fingers twitched then stilled, cautious at the spell. “It’s a first date. Mother thinks she might be a good match, as it is certainly time for that.”

“You’re dating someone because your mother said to?” Harry had to laugh. “Malfoy, has it ever occurred to you that you ought to marry someone because you’re interested in her?”

“Like you and Weasley?” One eyebrow arched delicately as Malfoy froze, fingers carefully spread and apparently cradling something unseen.

Harry flushed deeply as he tried to puzzle out whether Malfoy meant _Ron_ , or _Ginny_. “Ginny and I broke up a while back. No one marries their high school sweetheart.” Something occurred to him then, remembering back to earlier that afternoon before the curse had taken over. “You said you didn’t need to be anywhere.” And his hair had been pink, and it had returned to its customary platinum blond now, which seemed odd to Harry but he couldn’t think how it meant anything.

“I lied.” Malfoy’s tone was flat. “I have no desire to share the personal details of my life with you, Potter. You don’t care, and we are not friends. But if you must whinge about what you are missing, then I shall not allow you to believe you are alone. I am as irritated by our current predicament as you are. I am merely quieter about it.” He cast a glare in Harry’s direction. “Do sit before you drive me mad. Or worse yet, bump into another of the spell bubbles and set off a new reaction before I’ve figured this one out.”

“I don’t care if you have a social life or not.” Harry wasn’t ready to sit still. He moved far from where Malfoy worked and let his fingers trail over the wall, sensing the residual magic. If he listened, he could swear he heard faint cries of pain in the distance, and he wondered if that were memory, imagination, or the remnants of the curse they were trapped within. “If you’re going to get married, congratulations. I’m sure her blood’s as pure as driven snow if she pleases your mother that much.”

“Her lineage is impeccable, yes.” 

Harry turned back to see that the line of Malfoy’s back was stiff, his fingers graceless as they worked. “So she’s perfect for you then,” he said slowly, fascinated by this chink in Malfoy’s armor. Something about Astoria Greengrass bothered him. Something he was going to hide from Harry rather than let him see his emotions.

“Of course she is.” Malfoy’s fingers flicked over something unseen, then he took a quick step back. Thin lips pressed together. “Potter,” he drawled. “If I were to guess, you would rather take a risk now in order to escape, rather than potentially be trapped in here for days. Correct?”

“Calculated risk,” Harry corrected him. “I’m brave, not stupid.”

“Oh, I don’t think it will kill us,” Malfoy mused. “Although I can’t be absolutely positive.” He watched a point on the wall, gaze fixed carefully upon it. As Harry watched, he saw a faint trace of magic spidering out, creating small cracks in the wall.

“What have you done, Malfoy?”

There was a loud _Crack!_ and the spiderweb tracery turned into thick cracks in the stone. Chunks rained down from the ceiling as Malfoy threw himself across the room in two large bounding steps. Malfoy gripped Harry’s shoulder and pushed him roughly. “Run!”

Harry didn’t have any choice, as the world fell apart around them. He grabbed Malfoy’s hand and ran.

#

It had been a terribly Gryffindor-like thing to do, Draco knew. Given time, he might well have been able to predict the exact effects of unraveling the curse in exactly that manner. However he had chosen instead to simply pull the string that bound the curse, letting the whole thing fly apart, rather than discuss the issue of Astoria Greengrass.

Which is how he came to be dashing through unfamiliar halls, his hand clasped tightly within Potter’s as they clung to each other and the world crashed down.

“Malfoy, here!” Potter yanked, and Draco tumbled after him into an alcove barely large enough to hold two adult men.

Draco put up his hands, pressing them against the stone walls to either side of Potter’s shoulders. Power thrummed through the stone into his fingertips, buzzing under his skin, lighting him up with the residual magic. It tingled, and as Draco looked down, Potter stared back at him, green eyes wide. “You feel it then?” One eyebrow arched; he’d had no idea Potter could feel the magic like that, although it was quite possible this was strong enough to penetrate even that mind.

Potter flushed. “Feel what?” He gripped Draco’s shirt and yanked again, just as something crashed down outside their small space. “The whole place is shaking.”

“Wherever we are, we’re in the thick of the curse,” Draco murmured, trying to ignore the man pressed against him. “The walls are alive with it.”

“We’re also buried.” Potter’s voice was flat. 

Draco twisted, but there was barely enough room to move. He managed to look over his shoulder to see the pile of rock that blocked their exit, the alcove having saved them from injury. There were small chinks in the pile—they were in no danger of suffocating—but it was not going to be moved easily. “But we’re not dead,” he pointed out with a faint smirk. “Thus, it did not kill us.”

“It didn’t make it any better either, Malfoy.” Potter pushed against Draco’s chest, succeeding only in creating a small amount of space between them and shoving Draco’s back into the stone. “Now we’re trapped.”

“We were trapped before,” Draco said mildly. “Now we are trapped in tight quarters, and irritatingly uncomfortable. Please, don’t fidget.” Because Potter was already doing just that, squirming to find a more comfortable space which solved nothing in the end other than pressing their bodies closer together. “Potter!” he snapped, gripping the other man’s shoulders. “If you continue I might just be forced to transform you into something I can fit in my pocket.”

“You make a good ferret,” Potter grumbled, but he leaned back. “Pity neither of us knows that kind of magic.”

Draco merely arched one eyebrow, laughing when Potter glared warily back at him. “Correct, I do not,” he admitted, but the expression on Potter’s face had been well worth the fabrication.

The problem was, momentary amusement did nothing to resolve the problem, which was that he was pressed tightly against a man he disliked in an alcove that felt smaller by the second. Draco knew, academically, that the alcove was not actually shrinking, but Potter was a man with quite a large personality, and he filled every available space somehow. Draco sighed, and glared at the other man again. “You’re still fidgeting,” he chided.

“Can’t help it.”

For a moment, Draco thought Potter might be flushed, but of course, that was the light. “Am I making you uncomfortable, Potter?” Draco let his hands skim over the surface of the rock, testing the ebb and flow of the magic within. “I assure you, I have not spent my nights longing for this situation any more than you have.”

Potter coughed.

Draco arched one eyebrow, smirking. “Or have you? Potter, is there something you haven’t been telling me?”

“It’s not _you_ , Malfoy,” Potter grumbled. “It’d be any fit person—male or female—pressed up against me like this.”

“I’d never have guessed.” And it was certainly something to think about. Perhaps they hadn’t been joking after all when he had teased Potter about visiting the other two members of the Golden Trio for a shag. “Let me guess, you and Weasley—” Draco didn’t specify which Weasley he meant. He didn’t have to; Potter’s deepening flush gave it away.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” Potter muttered.

“I’m not that interested in your personal life, Potter,” Draco informed him. “Although your embarrassment entertains me dearly. I’m quite certain you’ll be bored soon enough and start rambling about anything that comes to mind. Until then, if you could possibly manage to hold still, I shall do my best to be unarousing as I try to understand what this curse is now, so that we don’t find ourselves in an even more compromising position.”

Potter’s eyes opened wide in alarm, and Draco’s smirk deepened. If he had to be stuck, the least he could do was find something entertaining in the situation.


	3. Third Reel

“Malfoy.” Harry shifted, trying to find a new position where his foot wasn’t pins and needles. He leveraged himself by placing his hands on the walls and sliding sideways, hips momentarily pressing against his cellmate, who refused to move. “Malfoy,” Harry prodded again, nudging at the other man.

“If you disturb my work, we might well bring the rest of the walls down around us,” Malfoy murmured. “May I suggest that you stop rubbing yourself against me?”

“I’m not—” Harry cut himself off with a sigh. “You’re trying to get a rise out of me, I know. We’re both stuck here, Malfoy. It might make things easier if we managed to get on for the next hour or two.”

“Have I gotten a rise out of you?”

That damnable eyebrow arched as Malfoy pinned Harry under a quiet silver gaze, and bloody hell, Harry flushed again. “We’re _not_ talking about that,” he muttered. Because of course Malfoy had. They were pressed hip to hip, practically stuck to each other. And there was nothing to look at but Malfoy, those long elegant fingers tracing patterns on the wall that only made sense to him. Harry was stuck, and his mind was supplying helpful ideas to think about, not a one of which was anywhere near appropriate.

“You are the one insisting on moving in such tight constraints, Potter, and your interest in the matter is highly evident and difficult to ignore,” Malfoy said mildly.

“Fine, then let’s talk about you instead. You and Astoria Greengrass.” Harry knew it was rude, but he felt like pushing buttons at the moment and that cold demeanour was driving him mad. “When is the wedding?”

“Unplanned.” The word fell like a solid thump into the air between them. Malfoy gripped Harry’s head, fingers tangling in his hair as he pulled him closer, burying his face against Malfoy’s shoulder.

“Mmph.” Harry tried to speak but only got a mouthful of fabric and a quick inhalation of male scent which did nothing to help solve his problem.

“Hush,” Malfoy murmured, one hand holding him close while the other explored a segment of the wall directly behind where Harry had been leaning.

Harry dragged in a rough breath, catching spice and heat and a faint sheen of sweat. And underlying all of that, the rich, heady scent of musk.

Arousal.

He inhaled again and twisted his head in Malfoy’s grip, breathing out warmth against the skin of his neck, smiling when Malfoy shuddered.

Harry didn’t know what to do with this piece of information, but it pleased him to know he wasn’t the only one uncomfortable here. He wasn’t the only one affected by how closely they were pressed. He let his hand drift to Malfoy’s side, felt the other man stiffen in response.

“Don’t.” Malfoy’s tone was chill. “Do not presume that simply because we are in close circumstances that I entertain any notion—”

“I’m just intrigued at your interest at all. Straight men don’t react to other men like this, all sweat and hunger underneath that cold exterior.” Harry’s hand slid under Malfoy’s shirt, and he grinned when Malfoy jerked back. “Still want to talk about how hard I am?” Harry asked, feigning innocence. “I get the feeling I’m not the only one.”

“I am not hard for you,” Malfoy snarled.

“And I’m not hard for _you_ either,” Harry said. “But the point is, we’re both stuck here together, and it’s obvious we’re both affected and neither of us wants to discuss our personal lives. Maybe we should let go of the prickly attitudes and get on with the work we need to do.”

“Which I have been trying to do, Potter, but you insist on writhing against me.” Malfoy twisted them both until they switched places in the small space, rock rough against their backs. “Now hush, and let me work.”

“We’re not getting anywhere,” Harry pointed out. “I’m tired of standing, if I start leaning it’ll be on you which will just start a whole new round of argument, and you have yet to identify this curse.”

Malfoy sighed. “It’s not a curse, Potter. It’s a containment.”

Harry frowned. “What?”

“We’ve managed to somehow place ourselves within one of the containment fields around a cursed location,” Malfoy explained, voice too slow and patient, as if Harry were an imbecile. “However, I can no longer sense the curse which it contains.”

“Which means?” Harry prompted.

“Normally I’d break the curse before breaking containment,” Malfoy explained. “But in the case, we need to break containment first, or we’ll be trapped here for good.”

“And how do we break containment?” That ought to be simple, Harry knew. He cast _Finite Incantatem_ and waited while nothing happened.

Malfoy’s smile was brittle. “I don’t know. Something appears to have shored up this particular containment to a fascinating level of power. I only wish we were on the outside to observe it.”

“Sounds like we need more power,” Harry mused.

“Of course that’s it,” Malfoy replied dryly. “When in doubt, simply bludgeon your way through a problem. Finesse is entirely unnecessary when you’re the Golden Boy Who Lived.”

It wasn’t that. Harry wasn’t sure they could finesse their way out of this. It had been hours already, and Malfoy was one of the best. If he couldn’t break through neatly, then perhaps the only thing left _was_ brute force.

#

“You’re right, I’m shagging both of them.”

Draco tried not to look at Potter. That faint sheen on his forehead, the way his hair curled messily… It all served to make the other man far too attractive. He rolled his eyes and continued as he had been, trying to gather in residual power from the containment spell. “I thought you didn’t wish to discuss it,” he pointed out. “I have no need to know the details of your sex life.”

“Fine. Tell me what it was like to be in Hogwarts that year.”

Draco’s hands stilled, and he did look at Potter then. “That topic is off-limits,” he said quietly. That was one of the last things he wanted to remember. Neither the Manor nor Hogwarts were pleasant places, and he had pushed both as far from his mind as he could manage. “We are not discussing the war. It is past, and gone.”

“It’s here, in these walls all around us,” Potter pointed out, tone just as soft. “The mines are the remnants of the battles fought and all the curses cast. So everything that happened is a part of what we are experiencing right now.”

Draco’s lips thinned. “I’d rather discuss your ever-entertaining sex life.”

Potter snorted. “I had a feeling that would be the case. But now that I have your attention, I have a feeling the curses are more important.”

Draco leaned his head back against the stone, eyes closed. “Perhaps,” he acknowledged. “Perhaps. We knew, even then, that they permeated the walls.” He shuddered at a memory. “We could hear them when we slept, crying out still. The pain was gone, but the memory lingered like ghosts, slipping into our dreams. It’s a wonder we weren’t all mad by the end. You can’t possibly be surprised that we were desperate for the war to end.”

“We all wanted the war to end, Malfoy.” Potter managed to cross his arms, wedging them between their bodies in uncomfortable ways. Draco pulled back as far as he could, but still those elbows jabbed into him.

“We were all trapped, Potter,” he said dryly. “Cast into roles by our families and taught the only things we knew from birth. I couldn’t stop what happened here. None of us could.”

“Some fought against it.”

Draco remembered that. He remembered the bright wounds that bloomed across Longbottom’s face when a curse caught him there; he had seen the silvered remains of those scars that still traced across his cheeks. He had heard screams of pain when students were punished. He knew students had disappeared within the school. “I guessed where they went,” he murmured. “But we didn’t tell. The room kept them safe.”

He had surprised Potter with that, he saw it in his eyes. Draco’s smile thinned. “You thought that I would have willingly turned them in, even then? How evil you must think I am.”

“Scared, Malfoy. You were scared,” Potter said. “You thought they would kill you, and your family.”

“I didn’t want them to kill anyone,” Draco snapped. “Not even you.” He tugged at Potter’s arms, forcing him to unwind them, drop them to one side and out of Draco’s way. “I couldn’t stop the curses, but I wouldn’t _help_ them either. That was all I could do.”

Silence, for a long moment, then Potter inclined his head slowly, nodding once. Draco relaxed. It wasn’t approval, but it was, perhaps, a cease fire, and for the moment it seemed important.

“And the curse now?”

Draco’s attention shifted to the walls. “Binding,” he said flatly. “I can’t get through the containment spell to even touch the curse, and I doubt that anyone realizes we are in here. If we are even anywhere physically at all.”

“I’m bruised, battered, and aroused… I’m pretty sure this is my body.”

Draco tried to restrain the amused smirk and failed completely. “It could also be a construct of the imagination. Either way, neither of us has enough power on our own to crack the containment spell.”

“But together—”

“If we were to reliably combine our abilities, yes, we might have a chance.” Draco glanced at the ceiling and huffed a sigh. “Brute force may be our only option. Don’t be too entirely pleased with yourself; it is still not the _best_ idea you’ve had. But given that our other options involve remaining here longer, and I’m quite tired of being trapped with you, we shall simply have to try to batter down these walls.”

Silence, and when Draco looked, Potter was staring at him, expression inscrutable. “What?” snapped Draco, irritated.

“It’s just interesting to put it that way.” Potter’s tone was neutral, and he had apparently improved his defenses over the years as Draco was unable to read anything more than that. “What do we need to do in order to combine our power?”

“Hands first.” Draco dropped his and clasped fingers with Potter, then raised them again so they were pressed together. “The more we touch, the better it will work.”

Potter grinned and pushed, nudging Draco back against the wall. Their bodies fit, Draco’s legs going wide to let Potter rest between them, hip to hip, chest to chest, hands to hands. Forehead to forehead. “Touching,” Potter confirmed.

Draco refused to think about the weight of an attractive man pressing into him. He brought to mind the image of Astoria—a required dinner, a reason to escape. Pressure from his family was enough to make him limp, but it didn’t make him want to break out of this trap. Astoria was a lovely woman, but she was still a woman, and that was not what Draco wanted in his life. But the demand for an heir meant he needed her.

“What now?” Potter’s words, and a twitch of body against body, distracted Draco from his thoughts.

“Now we use each other as a focus, much like a wand, and we draw energy as if we were going to cast.” Draco’s eyes closed and he reached out mentally, touching the power that seemed to blanket over him in the form of Potter. He gasped at the feel of it rushing in, blood warming, body heating, and he felt Potter jerk against him at the same time. Fingers tightened, clasping hard, and Potter’s head fell, mouth against Draco’s shoulder.

“Is it supposed to feel like that?” Potter asked.

“Like a rush?” Draco murmured. “Not usually.”

“You’ve done this before?”

Was Potter disappointed? Draco shifted, finding a more comfortable position in this tight, cramped space, letting Potter settle against him hip to hip. He felt the press of something there, and his own growing reaction. His tongue darted out to lick suddenly dry lips, and he tasted sweat from Potter’s throat. He swallowed hard. “Not like this.” His voice was measured, controlled, not letting Potter see how hoarse it wanted to be at this moment. “Using a person as a focus instead of a wand is elementary training in curse breaking. It is important to be able to combine power and abilities, so that all talents might be used together. It allows a pair of curse breakers to leverage abilities that only one Wizard or Witch might possess.”

“You’re lecturing.” Potter moved again, a slow rake of his hips, and Draco swallowed a groan.

Of course he was lecturing. Anything to focus away from the man pushing against him, insistent and powerful, raising Draco’s hackles in so many all too pleasant ways. He let a breath shudder out, then gathered another in. “You asked a question, Potter.” He fought for control, and was all too close to losing it. “You have to understand if we’re going to break out.”

“Using people as a focus for magic,” Potter said, mouth still drifting somewhere near the edge of Draco’s collar, breath huffing warmly against skin. “Like this.”

And Potter _pulled_.

Draco felt it, the rush of magic that slid through his body and into Potter at all the points where they touched. Shoulder. Hands. Groin. His knees went weak with the sensation, then stiffened as Potter _pushed_ all that magic back into him, doubled.

It was nothing like working with other partners of mediocre talent.

The way they were touching, it was almost enough to bring him off on the spot.

“Yes,” he groaned. “Like that. We need…” His voice trailed off, because Potter was moving. Hips rocking gently, mouth sliding up Draco’s throat to his jaw. “We need to _focus_. To gather it. To… to…”

Words fled when Potter’s mouth covered his and power flowed from one to the other and back again in a silent scream.

Draco’s fingers clenched, clinging to Potter, dragging him in and swallowing him whole. Power surged like a storm, gathering in teeming thunderclouds that cracked wide open with a roar.

With a scream, Draco exploded.

#

_Harry! Harry, where are you?_

“I’m right here.” Wherever here was, Harry wasn’t sure. It was dark, but he wasn’t alone. There was little sense of up or down, right or left. There was merely Harry himself and the warmth of a body wrapped around his. And a voice insistently talking in Hermione’s worried tone.

_You haven’t been in Hogwarts for hours now. We’ve checked the Map and you aren’t anywhere on it. Where did you go?_

That was a good question. There had been… rocks. And pale skin. Long fingers.

Mouth.

Harry grinned to himself. “Snogging Draco Malfoy.”

Silence.

_Did you say_ _snogging Draco Malfoy_ _?_

Of course Hermione would be horrified by that. Harry thought he ought to be horrified by that, but all he could remember was heat and power rising all around them.

_Harry? Are you all right?_

It was pitch black and Harry was fairly certain he was floating somewhere nonexistent, but other than that… “I’m fine, Hermione. Sorry I’m missing dinner tonight.”

_You’re worried about dinner? Harry, dinner’s not important. What’s important is that you’re missing, and you’re alone out there somewhere._

No, that was wrong, Harry was sure of that. He had someone right here with him. Warm, comfortable, fitting nicely in his arms. Ah, right. “I’m not alone,” he pointed out. “I’ve got Draco with me.”

Silence again.

_Were you really snogging Malfoy?_

Ron sounded even more arsed off about the idea, and that made Harry smile for some reason. “Jealous?” he asked.

_That’s not it at all!_

Of course not, why would Ron be jealous? It was just a thing with Ron, Harry, and Hermione. Something to do. Something that was comfortable because the three of them had always been together. Something Ron and Hermione didn’t care about nearly as much as Harry did. “Yes, I was snogging Malfoy,” Harry said. “It wasn’t half bad.”

_Harry, we need you to focus on something other than hormones. Can you tell us where you are?_

Hermione had shifted to her teacher tone. Harry disliked that tone. It made him feel about five years old. “No,” he said plainly. “I’m somewhere, with Draco.” Memories slid back into his mind then, reminding him exactly what had happened. “We tried to burn our way out of the containment field by sharing power. I don’t think we made it, so we’re likely further into the curse.”

_You’re inside a curse?_

“Handily you’re with one of the best curse breakers that Gringotts has to offer.” Malfoy’s tone was hoarse and rough but thankfully _real_ in the darkness. “Potter, care to explain why we’re hearing Granger’s voice?”

_He wasn’t joking about snogging Malfoy, was he?_

_Ron,_ _focus_ _. You both need to tell us everything you can about where you are so we can rescue you._

“Hermione, have you told Malfoy’s folks that he’s missing?” Harry knew that was important. After all, Malfoy had somewhere to be that night.

“Potter.”

A hand touched his, and Harry felt that warmth. “Mm?”

“Hush.” Malfoy paused a moment, then explained, “I haven’t had a chance to determine exactly what’s happened, Granger. As Potter said, we attempted to break out of the containment field, however, I suspect we may have actually employed more power than necessary and quite possibly may have turned the containment field inside out.”

_That’s rather impressive._

“Exactly what I was thinking.” Malfoy said dryly. “Which is what happens when one experiments with unfamiliar magic under extenuating circumstances.”

“I thought you said you’d done that before,” Harry protested.

“Not with you,” Malfoy murmured. “Apparently there’s something to be said for first times.”

Harry swallowed hard. It was dark, there was no sense of up or down, and still he had the oddest urge to roll Malfoy over and start stripping him. “Let’s not talk about first times,” he said quietly.

_Let’s not!_

_Ron, let them be. Harry, Malfoy—the speaking spell is about to end. We’ll reach you again as soon as we—_

Silence.

“Seems as if we’re on our own.”

“Seems so,” Harry responded. “So what next?”

Silence again, and he felt Malfoy sigh. “I have absolutely no idea at the moment.”

Harry had plenty of ideas what they could do about it, none of which were appropriate for the moment. He made a soft non-committal noise and rested his head against the back of Malfoy’s shoulder. “Neither do I.” He shook his head. “Neither do I.”


	4. Fourth Reel

“We’re someplace else again.”

The bed moved behind Draco, someone shifting to sit up, then step out. It was too early, and too bright in the room, so Draco grabbed the blanket and pulled it over his head, burrowing down into covers that smelled of… Potter. It all came rushing back then—Hogwarts, the curses, stones crashing down and the alcove. The containment spell and sharing magic. His heart pounded with the memory, and his trousers were irritatingly tight. He pressed his lips together, making a disgruntled noise as the warmth of his own breath circulated back on him in his cocoon. “Where?” he asked, since Potter seemed to have fallen silent.

“The beach?” Potter’s voice lilted up in questioning confusion. “I don’t recognize it.”

Draco nudged the blanket down and sat up slowly, pushing his fringe back from his face. The room was familiar, with an underlying scent of cedar and roses, the entire place cast in country kitsch and woodwork. Potter stood by the window, hands on the sill. A shirt had been discarded and he stood bare-chested and barefoot, trousers hanging lower on his hips than Draco had thought they might. Fit hips, and a fit back from what Draco could see, although the skin was roughly scarred in various places.

The scene didn’t help Draco’s discomfort.

“Brighton,” he finally said. “I remember this particular cottage from when I was perhaps nine or ten. Before Hogwarts, at the least, during a family outing one summer. It has a private beach.”

Potter turned slowly, and the sunlight streaming through the window limned the edges of his body. He reached up to comb fingers through messy dark hair. “You don’t think the curse might have sent us here in actuality, do you?”

Draco slid from the bed slowly, taking advantage of the movement to adjust himself to some semblance of propriety. “I highly doubt it. I suspect this is conjured from our minds.”

“Your memory, your mind.”

Draco shook his head. “There ought to be touches of yourself here as well. It was our magic that broke the containment field and sent us to that limbo, thus it was likely our combined subconscious that created this locale.”

Potter tilted his head back, staring at the ceiling. “So we’re dreaming. And we have no idea where our bodies actually are, and it’s quite possible we’re dying somewhere. But on the upside, Hermione and Ron were somehow able to speak with us.”

“Intriguing spellwork,” Draco murmured, impressed despite himself.

Potter glared at him. “Hermione’s brilliant. You _know_ that. You don’t have to be pure to be a brilliant witch.”

Draco stared back at him, blinking once. “I’ve felt your magic, Potter. You’re a halfblood, no more, and yet your internal energy easily matches my own if not surpassing it. Together we have a ridiculous amount of ability. Perhaps almost frightening. I do believe I have quite enough evidence that purity of blood is not required for ability.” His tone was dry, an edge of sarcasm adding bite to the words. “Or perhaps you haven’t noticed that my current protégé is a Muggleborn wizard. Or that I have trained every Muggleborn and Halfblood to enter the curse breakers since I achieved my own rank.”

He had made it a project, his own method of atonement for the atrocities committed during the war. He also insisted that he train the best, and he had hand-picked his apprentices. The two projects had combined handily, and aside from his irritation with Creevey’s current lack of attention and ability, he was generally pleased. And Creevey would come around. Draco was well aware how much talent the boy carried naturally; he only needed to learn to harness his enthusiasm. Curse breaking was a business of patience, and Creevey had little of that.

“Prejudice is gone then?” Potter inquired.

Draco tried to read his expression, something hidden behind green eyes. He frowned. “You’ve learned to hide your emotions.”

Potter licked his lips. “I’ve learned that letting the world read everything I think doesn’t help me as an Auror. Or as a hero. When every move I make is photographed, or possibly finds its way into an article in the Prophet, I need to be careful.” One shoulder shrugged. “So yes, I’ve learned to take care not to show everything I think in my face.” The serious expression slid into a smile. “But I’ll let you have this one for free. We’re going for a swim.”

Draco arched one eyebrow. “We’re trapped within a curse, potentially dying, and yet you decide we have time to go frolic among the waves?”

Potter undid his trousers and grinned at Draco, pausing before he pushed them slowly over his hips, leaving himself clad only in boxers. “If I’m dying, I want to make the most of what I have left.” He kicked the trousers away. “We have a beach and possibly the most peaceful place I’ve ever been. So yes, I’m going for a swim. I’m going to relax, and I’m going to try to forget all about this, and then when my mind is clear I’ll attack the problem again.”

He turned away, but not before Draco caught sight of the bulge in his boxers, the evidence that Potter wasn’t entirely unaffected by this situation. Potter paused at the doorway and glanced back. “You might want to get your clothes off first. It’s never good to swim fully clothed.”

It was entirely impractical. Impossible. Ridiculous.

And yet, Draco skinned his trousers off and set them neatly aside, his shirt folded on top, waiting for him to return. He kept his carriage straight, body exuding proper demeanor as he made his way down the beach to where Potter had already plunged into the warm water and laughed as he came up for breath, droplets shaking from his hair.

It lasted until Draco was knee deep in the water and Potter pounced him, knocking him under until they came up breathless. Then propriety fled in the face of a chance to play. Draco wasn’t quite certain when the last time he had done so was… some days it seemed as if he had never exactly been a child.

Come to think of it, the last time might have been here, in Brighton. Draco filed that tidbit away as potentially useful information about the curse, then swam to catch Potter, wrapping arms around his legs and tugging him under. The curse could wait.

#

They lay on the beach on conjured towels, but that didn’t stop sand from getting into uncomfortable places. Harry shifted, reaching for the wand he had summoned so the he could enlarge the towels.

“Potter, stop wiggling.” Malfoy’s voice was lazy. Remote. As if he dozed in the sun.

Harry rolled over to prop himself up on one elbow next to Malfoy. “I was enlarging the towel. I don’t like sand sticking to me.”

“Perhaps you ought to have thought of that before deciding to play in the sand,” Malfoy murmured. “But then, you never did have much foresight, Potter. Leap first, look later—I do believe that’s the Gryffindor way.”

It was, once upon a time. Harry hadn’t really thought that way for a very long time. Not since fourth year, when the threat of Voldemort had gone from personal to something affecting the entire wizarding world. Cedric Diggory’s death had stolen Harry’s childhood, and becoming the hero of the wizarding world had done nothing to bring it back. “I don’t, anymore. Not often enough, anyway,” he said quietly.

Malfoy’s eyes were closed, and Harry could look him over at his leisure.  Pale skin warmed flush by the sun despite charms. But the sun wasn’t real, and Malfoy wouldn’t be burned when they finally made it home, so what did it matter now if he was a bit pink? It made Harry want to reach out, press the pad of his thumb against Malfoy’s skin to see it go white then watch the blood flood back in. Either that or trace the scars on his chest that Harry recognized all too well.

Those he did reach out to touch, fingers light across the lines. “I’m sorry.”

“I believe we have both saved each other’s lives since then.” Malfoy opened his eyes, gazing at Harry. “It was a long time ago, and we were on two different sides of a war.”

“And now we’re not.” Harry let his hand flatten, fingers spread out.

“What are you doing, Potter?”

Harry tried to think this through. Malfoy didn’t sound upset, or necessarily intrigued. Merely curious. “Leaping,” he said quietly, although he waited just a fraction of a moment to see if Malfoy would shift. Pull away. Then Harry did as he’d said, leaning forward to press his mouth to Malfoy’s.

There was no answering surge of power this time, no sudden rush, but he still tingled from head to toe. His hand slid from Malfoy’s chest to his shoulder, then to the back of his head as Harry rolled closer, lying half on top of the other man. Harry didn’t want to rush this kiss. They weren’t trapped in an alcove. The world wasn’t ending around them. They were in the hot sun, skin warmed and rosy, and Harry’s body ached from the nearness of an attractive man who happened to be wearing only boxers like himself.

He sighed when Malfoy groaned, and captured the sound, feeding it back to him with a low sound in his throat. Malfoy’s hand slid down Harry’s back, pausing at a thick knot of scar over his shoulder blade. Long fingers worried at it, massaging a spot that was always tense and Harry thought no one had ever noticed.

Harry broke the kiss, moaning as fingertips dug in, trying to find the edges of the knot and get it to release. “Malfoy… it’s a scar. It won’t—”

“Shut up, Potter, and let go.” A thumb pressed dead center on the knot as Harry arched back into it, and the muscle let go in swift release so sudden it was almost painful.

Harry’s breath shuddered. He’d never found massage erotic, and certainly not the sort of massage that went deep below the skin to work out the kinks. But that… that was almost as good as an orgasm. “Bloody hell, Malfoy, your fingers are magic.”

“Talented, yes.” Harry felt Malfoy’s smirk against his mouth as it was reclaimed for a kiss.

Then everything else went away for a time, drinking in the taste of each other. Sun and sand, fresh air and heat. Harry shifted until he straddled Malfoy, pressing their hips together and loving the way Malfoy pressed back. Two thin layers of fabric separated two hard pricks. Harry reached down and wrapped his hands around them both, squeezing and stroking until Malfoy’s hips seemed to jump up at him.

Fuck, but it was beautiful to see this man lose control.

Teeth scraped against Harry’s shoulder and he rocked his hips forward in response, listening for the sound of caught breath that was answered by the clench of Harry’s gut. Yes. That. He murmured a spell as he shoved their boxers down, baring their pricks so he could press them closer, the spell making them slick in his hand. He stroked from root to tip, rolling over the heads, wanking roughly. He was needy, and from the sounds Malfoy made, he needed this too.

Harry arched his back, wanting to taste more of him. His mouth moved from lips to throat, teasing at the hollow, tongue sliding over his collar bone. When he reached one rosy nipple, he gathered it between his teeth and tugged sharply, rewarded by Malfoy’s keening cry as his body arched. “Potter!” The one word was strangled, carrying a wealth of emotion. Begging. Hungry. Desperate.

Harry’s hand moved faster, frantically stroking them both. He was close, so close, and he knew he couldn’t hold off much longer. “Fuck, Malfoy. Oh fuck, I’m going to—” He felt his balls tighten, and that was it as he lost control, shooting his warm, sticky fluid onto Malfoy’s sun-kissed skin. He wanted to collapse in the aftermath, but he couldn’t, his hand still moving over Malfoy, mixing his own scent with the lube.

Malfoy’s fingers clung to his shoulders, digging in as Malfoy arched, breath coming in low pants. He was close, Harry could tell.

Harry slid back, kissing over the scars across Malfoy’s abdomen, tongue sliding lower until he replaced his hand with his mouth, swallowing Malfoy’s prick deeply. He had no time to react, no time to pull back as Malfoy thrust hard and finally let go. Harry swallowed, waiting until the aftershocks were over and Malfoy lay limp on the towel once more. Then he crawled up beside him and sprawled half on him, half next to him, seeking contact despite the warmth of the day.

“Too hot,” Malfoy muttered, but he didn’t move other than to curl closer.

“Mm.” Harry nuzzled Malfoy’s shoulder. “Shut up, Malfoy. Just let go and sleep.”

Harry wondered, as his eyes closed, if they’d wake up here on the beach, with their boxers slung low and still sticky, or if the curse would change now. He suspected that the only consistency he could count on was that no matter where he woke up next, Draco Malfoy would still be there. They seemed stuck together for now, and at this moment, that didn’t seem so bad.

#

“So, just how gay are you?” Potter’s tone was light, but Draco could hear the curiosity in his words.

They were both in the water again, washing sand and stickiness from their skin. “What sort of a question is that?” Draco rolled his eyes. “You make it sound as if there is a scale, whereupon one might choose to be only somewhat gay, or perhaps extensively eternally gay. I’m merely gay, Potter, nothing more, nothing less.” He gave the other man a dark look. “And I’d prefer if what happened between us were to stay here, between us. I have a potential wife to court, after all.” And Potter had his Weasel and Granger, both of whom were obviously waiting anxiously for him to return. “Should your Weasel happen to ask about you _snogging Malfoy_ ,” Draco sneered as he repeated Potter’s own words back to him, “you can simply tell him it was a hallucination. I doubt, after all, that it is all that far from the truth.”

“I’m not gay, I’m bi,” Potter said, tone gone flat. “I like men and women both, fairly equally surprisingly enough. So yes, Malfoy, there are shades of gay. Are you even going to be able to get it up for your wife when you have one?”

“What does that matter to you?” Draco refused to explain to Potter about spells that allowed a man to feign interest when there was none. Or the possibilities that polyjuice introduced into the marriage bed. Anything might happen, as long as Astoria was biddable and trustworthy. But none of it was as simple as enjoying an evening in bed with a fit bloke. “This was an aberration, Potter. It isn’t going to happen again.”

_What isn’t going to happen again?_

Lovely, what perfect timing for the Weasel to interrupt. “Nothing that could possibly be your business, Weasel. Now tell me, are we hearing voices for a reason?”

_I want to know—_

_Ron! Malfoy, I don’t have an answer for you as to what happened, but I can tell you this: Hogwarts is no longer safe._

“It wasn’t safe to begin with, Hermione.” Potter had somehow slipped in close to Draco, standing right behind his shoulder, one hand resting on his hip as if proximity would help them both hear the spell. “That’s what we were doing there. Containing cursed locations, then letting the curse breakers deal with them so we could make the school safe again.”

_It’s no longer even that stable. Spells keep going off at random moments, and one spell sets off a cascade rippling through the castle until it finally stops, resting against a much larger spell. It is as if the smaller hexes and curses are creating space and containing the much larger ones._

“Interesting.” And it made sense to Draco, fit in neatly among the other puzzle pieces in his mind that made up the outer framework of these curses. “If that is true, then soon Hogwarts should have only a few curses left, but those few could destroy it entirely.”

_Exactly. And Malfoy, Creevey told us that you and Harry went down into Slytherin to track down a rogue curse. Is that correct?_

“That’s exactly it, Hermione,” Potter butted in. “It’s possible we’re still there, actually. Our bodies, anyway. Our minds seem to have been pushed—”

_Your bodies aren’t here, Harry. I’m sorry—_

Potter went stiff, and Draco turned slightly, letting his arm go behind Potter’s back, fingers splayed over the wet skin. Soothing. “Explain, Granger,” he said curtly.

_We’ve been down into Slytherin. There’s evidence of an explosion, several really. It looks as if the cascade began there, and much of it has rolled into the dungeon. Your bodies are not there. Not much is left, save one very large curse._

“In the dungeon, where it might do the worst damage were it to explode now,” Draco murmured. He could see it, knew he’d felt the edges of it, even larger than the one they’d set off when they began the path they were on now.

_Exactly. And that’s where you disappeared. So we expect—_

“That’s where we shall need to return.” Draco fell silent after that, mulling over the implications. For one, they needed to find their way out of this dreamscape, which it appeared was not entirely a fabrication. Perhaps a reality born of both their minds, to keep them safe from the curse. But upon returning, they needed to step into the same space as a curse that was on the edge of explosion, and survive. And pray that the entirety of Hogwarts did not come down upon their heads.

“We’ll be okay, Hermione,” Potter said quietly. “Draco’s got a good head on his shoulders, and we’ll make it back safely. But in the meantime, make sure that Hogwarts has been completely evacuated. Then I want a small team of Aurors—Ron, you pick the top folks and coordinate with Kingsley—and curse breakers to go in and place containment bubbles. I don’t want these anywhere near the curses that remain. I want them placed strategically to withstand the explosion when those curses go. Because you can’t assume we’re going to be able to break them safely when we come back through, but you _must_ ensure that Hogwarts doesn’t fall. Do you understand?”

_Mate—_

_Ron, hush. We understand, Harry. Just—take care. Both of you._

Potter’s head bowed, lips touching Draco’s shoulder. “We will. I’m not ready for either of us to die.”

There was a soft hiss and pop, and Draco assumed that the speaking spell was broken once more. He turned to face Potter. Pointed chin lifted and he looked down his nose at the dark-haired man. “You have a plan?”

“Something of one,” Potter admitted, with a small smile just starting to quirk. “You won’t like it.”

“I didn’t think I would,” Draco said dryly. “But perhaps you ought to tell me what it is, nonetheless. Perhaps then I can make it feasible.”

“I’m trusting that you can.” Potter nudged him towards the shore. “Step one, get dressed. Then we’re going to discuss personal containment shields, sharing of magic, and how to blow things up.”

As he walked away from Draco, making his way up the shore, Draco saw the spot on Potter’s back that he’d touched earlier that day. The knot lay just behind his left shoulder and seemed to slide and move with every step. “Potter,” Draco asked. “Where did you get the scar on your shoulder?”

Potter twisted as if he could look over his own shoulder, then offered a rueful look. “I’ve had that one for ages,” he admitted. “Since Quidditch second year. I broke my arm, so I never could think how I got it, but it was there. Started off small, but it grew over the years. It’s been steady for a long while, but I think it’s bigger again. Deeper.”

Draco frowned. Something about that story rang off, but he couldn’t quite touch on what it was. “Seems like it bothers you.”

Potter shrugged. “It’s tight. Like a knot I can’t reach, and no one’s ever able to get it to give in and relax.” He smiled slightly. “Except you. Came right apart under your hands.”

As did Potter himself. Draco felt the heat in his cheeks and he looked away, bending to collect the towels instead and shake sand from them. “Obviously you just need the right touch.” He meant for his tone to be snide, but it was quieter than he intended. He heard Potter snort, then the sound of footsteps over sand.

By the time Draco looked back up, he was alone.


	5. Fifth Reel

As plans went, it wasn’t one of Harry’s best.

He had no way of knowing how quickly time was passing outside of their own little world, so he had no idea how long to give them to get the containment spells in place. And he had to hope that Hermione truly understood what it was Harry was planning. She was the precise one; she would know exactly where to place the spells in order to save Hogwarts. Ron was the one who might understand why, that there was no way to predict what would happen when they came back into Slytherin. Harry expected an explosion. He expected a very large unsurvivable explosion that would reduce Hogwarts to rubble.

But then the Death Eaters would have won. Years later, perhaps, but it would still be a victory. And Harry wouldn’t let that happen.

“How much of this do you think is real?” Harry mused aloud as he sat on the edge of the bed, lacing up trainers that he’d found in the closet. It was a well-stocked closet, with clothes that suited Harry as well as those that suited Draco. His gaze drifted across to the other man who was tucking in his shirt, looking as buttoned up as he had when the adventure began. _Draco_. The name felt new, but after all they’d been through it seemed simplest. “You don’t just give someone a hand job then go on calling them by last name.” The words were whispered under his breath, but he saw Draco stiffen anyway.

“We have not become bosom friends,” Draco said, tone tight. “When this is done, you will go with yours and I with mine, and we shall ignore each other for several more years, I’m certain. This is merely a day out of our lives. It is not about _us_.”

“Of course not. It’s about the war, and Hogwarts, and who was more affected by that than us?” Harry watched him. “People died, Draco. People we knew. Friends, family. Everything changed in those years, and we were stuck at the center of it. You were cast as the poster boy for darkness just as much as I was held up as the poster boy for light. Two sides of the same coin. We were linked before we ever knew who the other one was. Do you really think this is all accidental?”

Draco’s brow furrowed. “Say that again, Potter.”

“Which part?” Harry walked over to stand behind Draco, hands at his hips, peering over his shoulder to meet his gaze in the mirror. “This isn’t accidental, Draco. Everything that’s happened has happened the way it has because it’s us in the spell.”

“No,” Draco murmured. “Before that. Two sides of the same coin…”

“That we’re linked?” Harry snorted. “I can’t see how you could deny that one. We had seven years of give and take, constantly going back and forth. Hogwarts would never have been the same without you. You were my enemy, but you were a constant in my life. If anything, we made it worse when we saved each other.”

There was something dawning in Draco’s gaze, a shift in expression. An understanding that ended with a small smile. “I see. Yes. The curse draws on our combined memories to shift us away, protecting us, much like someone must have protected another here.”

“In Slytherin,” Harry says. “Which is the actual reality of here.”

“Perhaps.” Draco’s gaze shifted, looking at something Harry couldn’t see. “I believe the curses in Hogwarts may have been acting in concert. The dungeon became a focal point, but I’m not entirely certain that they were the only place that impacted the depth of this particular curse. Hogwarts as a whole—”

“Acted on our desires,” Harry finished the thought. “The Room of Requirement was destroyed.”

“Perhaps it wasn’t,” Draco said. “Perhaps it simply merged with the castle.”

“And all this was to bring us back for unfinished business?” Harry couldn’t help but be dubious. It was one thing to say that everything they had seen so far had been drawn from their minds, but something else entirely to think that the curses had engineered them to be here. It left a bad taste in his mouth to think that others had been manipulated.

“I doubt it.” Draco dismissed it with a sharp wave. “But once it had us, I do believe we may have been the catalyst to set off a much larger cascade than already happened.”

“So we’re at fault for potentially destroying Hogwarts.” Harry glanced at the ceiling and shook his head. “McGonagall will love to hear that explanation.”

“We shall also be the ones responsible for saving it,” Draco said firmly. He turned and straightened Harry’s collar, fingers combing through his hair until it lay somewhat respectably upon his head. It made Harry smile to be groomed so casually, but he didn’t say a word lest it make Draco self-conscious enough to stop.

“So you understand what I’m asking of you,” Harry said.

“First we cast a containment spell just large enough to hold the two of us,” Draco ticked items off on his fingers. “Second we gather our energy together and very precisely shatter the containment spell which holds us now without damaging the closer one. Third, we duck.”

“Because at that point the spell in Slytherin should be set free when we return, and everything’s going to fall down on our heads. Potentially.” Or not, since Harry had done his best to plan around this. But nothing in life was certain, even less so since he’d set foot in Hogwarts.

Draco gestured sharply with his wand. A wand Harry couldn’t remember if Draco had lost once already. Harry knew he had lost his, and yet it was in his pocket where it belonged. Strange magic indeed, and he wasn’t sure what of it was real or imagined any more. When Harry didn’t move, Draco gestured again, and Harry stepped in closer.

“Don’t move,” Draco ordered, and this time Harry stayed perfectly still as Draco began to cast. They’d gotten into enough trouble working against each other already; it was time to work together.

#

“Harry.” Draco smirked at the look of surprise on Potter’s face at the one word. “You did invite me to call you by your given name,” he pointed out. “The containment spell is in place, and as close as we are, I do believe I have more than enough energy to break the outer spell.”

More than enough energy. It was an understatement. Draco could feel Harry’s power buzzing through his blood, simmering just under his skin, begging to be released. He was aware of every inch where they touched, and of the loss where they didn’t. Calling magic with Harry touching him was dangerous; it begged for more. Heady, and powerful, and aching to be used. Draco let his fingers tighten in Harry’s shirt, gripping his back as he kept him held close, hips fit together.

Harry’s hands were on Draco’s ass, gripping just as tightly, and Draco could feel the shuddering breath more than hear it. “Ready,” Harry murmured. “No, wait.”

Draco had his wand half lifted when Harry’s hands moved, sliding up over Draco’s shoulders, up to cradle his head, holding him while Harry kissed him, bruisingly hard and deep. Draco couldn’t help swaying into it, opening his mouth and inviting Harry in, taking more than was offered.

Harry wrenched away finally, ending forehead to forehead as he locked gazes with Draco. “Come what may, _now_ I’m ready.”

And so was Draco, for so many more things than merely ending the spell that imprisoned them. He let his free hand slide up until it covered the knot of scar tissue on Harry’s shoulder, noticeable to Draco despite the fabric of the shirt over it. He let his fingers press in, deep and sharp against the scar. Draco felt Harry’s gasp and swallowed it with his mouth as he lifted his wand and cast.

The world imploded, and Draco clung to the one thing that was real.

When it resolved, they stood together in a place that stank of smoke and ash, soot scarring the walls and covering every surface. The containment field around them held, and Draco refused to let go of Harry, uncertain whether the spell would cover any distance between them.

“This isn’t Slytherin,” Harry said.

“It most certainly is not. I don’t believe this room has been opened since the war.” Draco would know this room anywhere. This configuration, this appearance, was etched into his nightmares. “Nor does it seem to have changed since the Fiendfyre destroyed it.”

There was a faint boom, and the floor shook beneath their feet.

“I don’t think it can protect us,” Harry said, looking into Draco’s eyes. “I think it’s up to us to get out of here.”

“And not a broom in sight.” Draco let his hand slip down to grab Harry’s, tightening as another boom shook the castle. The containment spell slid over their skin, finding that anchor between them, and held.

The next boom was closer, the floor tilting dangerously, toppling them as they slid across and down in a tangle of arms and legs. They spilled over an edge that shouldn’t be there, and Harry fell out into empty space while Draco clung to the edge with the fingertips of one hand, Harry swinging from the end of his other arm, nearly wrenching it out of its socket. Draco grit his teeth and held on.

“Let me go!” Harry said. “You can get back up without me!”

“Don’t be an idiot!” Draco snapped. “Cast a cushioning charm, and I’ll let go.”

It was a bouncing spell, he discovered, as they both landed on the next floor down and bounced back up, still tangled, rolling head over heels until the bounce slowed and faded. The castle shook around them.

“The containment spells weren’t good enough!” Draco shouted over the noise. “The whole bloody thing is going to come down!”

“I know!” Harry shouted back. But he stood there, looking down through the hole that had opened in the floor, at an impossible view of the Great Hall. They weren’t even in the right place, yet somehow that’s where it led. There was longing in his expression and sorrow.

Draco wrapped his arms around Harry’s waist from behind and pressed his lips to his throat. “I know,” he murmured, answering the unspoken thoughts. “But the Ministry will choose something to rebuild. Everyone will have a place to go where they will be safe. Where they can grow.”

Irony in those words, that this place had been so much safer for them both than anywhere else, despite everything that had come about. And now it seemed determined to destroy them.

“Harry,” Draco murmured, tugging at him. Sharper then, trying to jostle him free of his reverie. “Harry!” When green eyes met grey, Draco waited until he was sure he had Harry’s full attention before he ordered, “Run!”

#

Stones crashed down around them, shattering so close that Harry felt the spray of shards over his skin. Once more they raced through, trying to escape. But every time before they had raced separately. This time Draco’s hand tightly gripped his and they dragged each other onwards, pulling each other out of danger and around obstacles. When the ceiling collapsed in front of them, they stopped and together cast a spell to shatter the rocks, blowing a hole open to climb through.

Harry had tried to make Draco let go once, when it would have potentially saved Draco’s life, and Draco had refused. Once again, Harry owed him. A life for a life, a constant path of give and take. He felt the scar on his shoulder ache, then ease.

They burst out into the sunlight in a thunder of stone and a cloud of smoke that obscured their vision. Harry coughed, trying to clear his lungs. “Draco!” he yelled. No response but an answering squeeze. Good.

He ached. He wrapped one arm around Draco’s waist, felt the other man lean into him, limping. Together they made their way through the smoke towards cries that barely made it through their explosion deafened hearing.

Hands caught them, separated them.  Harry gasped for breath, groaning when a spell abruptly cleared his airways and brought in blessed oxygen. “Draco—” he managed to say.

“He’ll be fine. You close your eyes so we can get you patched up.” Hermione’s voice, and her calm, cool hands as she helped him to a stretcher and cast the spells to bind him there. He started to protest, but she gave him no other choice, sending him off to sleep with a wave of her wand.

Harry woke in a field tent, surrounded by canvas of a sickly green that meant St. Mungo’s. He sat up slowly, taking care of an aching head and a body that felt as if he had been through the war once more. No Healer in sight, only one other cot, and a pale figure sleeping under a pile of blankets, blond hair in disarray on the pillow.

Malfoy.

 _Draco_.

Harry stood cautiously, making sure his feet were steady before he stumbled the few feet to Draco’s cot. He sank down next to it, not trusting himself to stay standing, and there wasn’t enough room to sit on the edge. One hand lightly touched Draco’s shoulder, enough to feel the rise and fall of his breath, but not enough to wake him.

It was funny how things changed. Harry had gone from hating Draco to snogging him and more in the space of a day or two, however time measured itself within that curse. And when he thought about it, _linked_ seemed to be the right word. Harry’s world had always revolved around Draco’s and vice versa, no matter how many times they had slipped away from each other. It seemed like they always came back.

And the Room of Requirement… that was where the selfless act had occurred. That was the life that was saved in the midst of all those curses and death, and that was the anchor the embedded curses had found. That was what had changed. It was their fault. It had always been about them, all along.

Draco stirred, and Harry pulled his hand back, waiting.

“Don’t stare at me,” Draco said petulantly. “Would you want to be watched while you slept? I could feel your eyes trying to bore into me even in my dreams, Potter.”

 _Potter._ Harry sighed. “So we’re back to that then?” he asked.

Something vulnerable slipped in to darken Draco’s gaze. “And why wouldn’t we be?”

“Because we’ve got a second chance,” Harry said. “Because we didn’t die, and we made it out of there together.”

“We destroyed Hogwarts.”

Harry shrugged. “I suspect in some ways it destroyed itself. It couldn’t live with all those curses buried in its bones.”

There was a long pause before Draco said slowly, “Hogwarts isn’t— _wasn’t_ —alive.”

But Harry could see that Draco had followed his logic. He reached out, slipping his fingers beneath the blankets until he found Draco’s hand. He let their fingers entangle, and squeezed slightly. “Sometimes it seemed like the Room of Requirement was, though, didn’t it? And it took a mortal wound during the battle. Maybe it needed to let go.”

Draco huffed an irritable noise. “Are we going to talk magical philosophy all day, or are you going to leap into things like the Gryffindor you are?”

Of course, he couldn’t just come out and say _will you kiss me, Harry?_ With a laughed, Harry did just that, covering Draco’s mouth with his own. There was no rush needed, plenty of time to spend exploring each other, enjoying the taste and teasing out soft sighs and moans.

“Snogging Malfoy.” Ron sounded horrified. “Hermione, he wasn’t joking. He’s _snogging_ _Malfoy_.”

“And it rather looks as if they are both enjoying it, so _hush_ , Ron,” she chided him.

Harry hadn’t heard them enter, and when he tried to pull away, Draco clung to him, keeping him in place until they were properly done, at least for that moment. Harry pushed himself to his feet, turning to greet his friends just in time to be gathered into a hug.

“Malfoy?” Ron asked again, disbelief written in his freckled features. “Bloody hell, Harry, anyone but that.”

Hermione thumped Ron on the shoulder. “He’ll get over it,” she assured Harry. “We’re just relieved to see you both alive.” Her expression sobered. “Hogwarts is gone, I’m sorry. We set several containment spells, more than Ron thought properly necessary, but when the cascade started it was as if they weren’t there. Every curse that exploded set off a reaction that rushed through the castle to the next, then the next. We thought certain we’d lost you, until we saw you coming out of the smoke together.”

“It was the Room of Requirement,” Harry explained. “And the curses in the walls. Hogwarts was broken, Hermione. I think we made it worse when we started to take the curses out, and Draco and I just got caught up in the backlash.”

She tsked, brushing off the explanation. “All that matters is that you’re safe, and I’m quite certain the Ministry will convene soon enough to discuss what is to be done.” She looked past Harry to where Draco sat on the edge of the bed. In a moment she had pushed her way through and wound her arms around Draco as well, hugging him hard. “I’m quite glad you’re all right as well. Don’t listen to Ron; he’ll come round eventually.”

“What makes you think we plan to make a habit of it?” Draco said dryly.

“The fact that you keep doing it, despite denying that it’s been done,” Hermione answered with a grin. 

Harry had to admit she was likely right, and from the flush, Draco agreed. “Then maybe you ought to tell folks we need a little more time to recuperate,” Harry suggested, nudging Hermione towards the exit. “And put a ward on the door. Give us a bit of privacy.”

She laughed as she left, but Harry heard the spell cast. They’d have a little time at least before they were interrupted again, and Harry intended to make the best of it.

#

“Where are we going?” Harry had just doffed his outer robes when Draco wrapped his arms around him and told him to brace for apparition. “Draco, I haven’t had dinner yet and I’m starved.”

“We have exactly three days together before I am sent off again for my next assignment,” Draco said, refusing to let go. “And this is something we need to do first.”

It had been three months since the events at Hogwarts. Three months of exploration and cautious explanations to the world. Three months of anger from Lucius Malfoy, and a careful move towards acceptance from Narcissa. Three months of explaining every time someone asked that yes, they were involved, and no they hadn’t hexed each other and no one was under the Imperius Curse.

Three months of joy in a life that Draco had thought would be without it.

And in celebration, he had a theory he wished to test, as a gift to his lover.

“Fine,” Harry agreed, wrapping his arms around Draco as well. “But you owe me dinner when we’re done.”

“Of course,” Draco murmured. He twisted them in place, and they reappeared just outside of where Hogwarts used to stand.

Harry’s hand gripped Draco’s tightly. “Why are we here?”

“Desire,” Draco said. “For example, the scar on your shoulder.”

Harry frowned. “What about the scar on my shoulder. It hasn’t been bad since I’ve been with you.”

“Exactly. You weren’t injured there during that Quidditch match. In fact, I cannot recall that scar ever being placed on your body, although it is possible it happened during the war. But any time you were seen, your shoulder was free of blemish,” Draco pointed out. “I believe you wished that scar into being when we were trapped in the curse.”

“I don’t get it.” Harry reached up, rubbing at a scar he could remember having. Something that had bothered him, aching and tight, the muscles beneath it fiercely knotted until Draco had finally let it relax.

“We’re linked,” Draco said. “And the Room has seen us over all those years and knew that, and it knew that you wished for it. So it gave you a physical manifestation of the link. In a manner of speaking, it cursed you. And me, in that I am the only one who is able to ease it for you.”

“I’m not sure how I feel about that.” Harry’s nose wrinkled.

“It’s done, and not worth worrying about anymore.” Draco waved one hand to discard the thought. “The point is, it was the clue to what happened, and how it happened, that the Room of Requirement was, in its own way, responsible for several of the effects we experienced among the curses. And I believe that knowing that is also the key to what will happen here today.”

Harry’s expression remained dubious, so Draco simply turned them both to look at the remains of the castle. Together. Linked. He let his magic rise, licking over Harry’s body until he felt an answering surge. A soft pulse sent into Harry gave him a response that let his blood thunder and rush, and Harry sighed. “Why, Draco?”

“Wish,” Draco murmured, lips beneath Harry’s ear. “It is still here, and it is still listening to us. It has been, every since we began, and it was there when you saved me. It saw that you did what was right, that you counteracted what happened around it. And it will give you your heart’s desire.” And Draco’s. Because Hogwarts had meant something to him. It had been the place where he was, at times, simply Draco Malfoy and not the son of a Death Eater. It was the place where he had moments of trying to be just a boy. Where he had felt joy. Where he had changed. And where Harry had changed him, in the end. It was the place where Draco had come into the realization that he wasn’t meant to be a Death Eater.

He felt Harry’s breath suck in and hold.

And the rubble began to move.

It came to life, twisting in a cyclone of noise, turning into something that was Hogwarts and yet not, the towers different. Brighter. Lighter. Somehow Draco knew that the dungeon remained beneath the ground but that the stains of the curses were gone. There was light throughout now, and hope. A time for a second chance.

He could feel the magic of the school thrumming against their own combined magic. Harry reached out with his fingers as if to touch, and the magic pulsed softly, then retreated.

“Is it my imagination, or is the Room a part of all of Hogwarts now?” Harry asked quietly.

“I do believe Hogwarts is truly alive, yes,” Draco murmured in response. “It may make students’ lives interesting.”

“Or it may help them find exactly what they need,” Harry pointed out, his gaze still fixed on the castle. When he turned a smile lingered about his lips. “You mentioned dinner?”

“Always thinking with your stomach.” Draco smirked.

“Hungry, at least.” Harry slipped back into Draco’s arms, fitting himself tightly. There was a soft thrum of pleasure in the magic when they kissed. “Let’s get home.”

 _Home_.

Draco smiled, and kissed him again for good measure. “Yes, lets.” He twisted in place, and they were gone.


End file.
